The AlwaysOn blog (click here) discusses the key takeaways from a day in the life of a guest Economics professor at the University of Michigan, Jason Mendelson. Despite a relatively small sample size (300 students) and an unknown level of socioeconomic diversity, the findings are quite interesting. Highlights include: 298 of 300 use Facebook (showing…
Within the last year, our 2008 free cash flow estimates for Comcast have dropped 25% to $3 billion from $4 bn, essentially in-line with the stock’s performance. While we lowered our ’08 estimates only two weeks ago (10/18) from $3.5 bn to $3.2 bn, it is clear following Comcast’s Q3 ’07 results that competition is…
No matter how many people the RIAA sues, no matter how many times music executives’ point to the growth of digital music, we believe an increasing majority of worldwide consumers simply view recorded music as “free”. A new model for music consumption must emerge and that model most likely involves DRM-free downloadable music at no…
Industry buzz continues to build toward a major Facebook advertising announcement on November 6, right in the middle of the Ad:Tech conference in NY next week. Valleywag (click here to read the story) believes Facebook will enter the advertising network business. Essentially, Facebook would leverage its knowledge of you and your “friends” network to serve…
Discovery has simply been leaving far too much “money on the table” – essentially failing (historically) to fully monetize all the content it owns. This explains, in part, why margins have been so far below peers. The ability of David Zaslav and his new management team (20 of the top 25 executive roles have been…
Ratatouille DVD (standard def and Blu ray) is set for release next Tuesday November 6th. One of our primary concerns for Disney has been the year-over-year DVD comps, particularly in fiscal (December) Q1 2008. In FY Q1 ’07, Disney’s studio operating profit soared to $604 million from $128 mm (contributing 78% of Disney’s operating profit…
This week’s Forbes (click here for article, with free registration at Forbes.com), reviews the history of how Sumner Redstone built his empire, how his assets are currently controlled and what might happen (trust/estate-wise) when he is no longer around. If you invest (or are thinking about investing) in Viacom or CBS its a worthwhile read,…
Members of the Pali Research team attended the world premiere of Bee Movie last night in New York (we are attending the analyst screening this coming Saturday morning). While Bee Movie is likely to open well, benefiting from the Seinfeld “buzz” and an aggressive marketing campaign (Jerry Seinfeld has literally been “everywhere” to promote this…
NII Holdings reported stronger than expected ARPU, which offset weaker than expected subscriber growth in Q3. EBITDA of $235 million was $7 million higher than our estimate but benefited from customer acquisitions costs that were $5 million lower than expected due to the lower than expected subscriber growth.
Social networking is not a fad and it is not just for college kids. Consider the following: The unduplicated domestic reach (according to Comscore) of Myspace and Facebook is 79 million people per month, with 48 mm exclusive to Myspace, 10 mm exclusive to Facebook and about 21 mm using both during the course of…
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